Is the UK government greenhushing its flagship energy policy?
It’d be easy to miss the release of the latest Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan. It’s an ambitious but, I think, realistic plan to rewire and reenergise the national economy.
In line with the 2008 Climate Change Act, the plan sets out how the UK can continue to grow the economy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions through to 2037.
The low-key release of the plan may reflect misguided nervousness about challenges from reality-denying right-wing parties and their apologists. All the polls show that most people do want action on the climate crisis, however. Admittedly, a large part of that support does depend on the energy transition not costing or inconveniencing consumers too much.
Actions should speak louder than words, of course. In June’s spending review, the government committed £63 billion in capital funding for energy, climate and nature projects. It needs to much better at selling the value of that.
A big part of the new delivery plan is around continuing investment in renewables and nuclear generation, as well as new forms of flexible power to match variable generation with peaks in demand.
The cost of the required investment in new generation and grid infrastructure is daunting. That means that everyone involved needs to be continually emphasising the benefits.
A recent study showing that wind power has cut over £100 billion from UK energy costs since 2010, a generous return on £43 billion subsidies over the same period. We should be highlighting that sort of benefit at every opportunity.
Growth sectors
The growth delivery plan also includes support for growing sectors such as hydrogen, where the UK already has some world-leading companies. Hydrogen can be used for energy storage as well as replacing fossil fuels in hard-to-electify industries such as cement and steel. Again, the economic benefits of growing that industry should be up in lights.
At the domestic level, there’s continuing support for the Warm Homes Plan to upgrade some five million homes to improve energy efficiency. As well as the benefits for the residents, that’s a big opportunity for companies working in retrofit, insulation, solar, batteries, heat pumps and other areas.
There’ll also be opportunities for installation businesses and electricians from planning reforms to support domestic EV charging. There’ll be new programmes to support charging stations in car parks for new residential blocks, and making it easier for householders without a driveway to install cross-pavement charging. However, the plans don’t seem to tackle the challenge of actually being able to reliably park outside your house.
Plumbing the depths
The growth plan builds on the clean energy jobs plan from earlier this month. That aims to help create over 400,000 jobs in the clean energy sector by 203, almost doubling the workforce.
And yes, that will include some plumbers to work on energy infrastructure and industrial fit-outs. The plan forecasts up to 10,000 new jobs needed in plumbing, heating and ventilation installers and repairers.
There has been some attempts at piss-taking over that, but it’s never edifying to see commentators sneering at skilled trades people. There’s an awful lot of pipes involved in nuclear, carbon capture or hydrogen plant, let alone energy-efficient homes, offices and factories.
It’s notable that no one seems to be picking on any of the more white-collar roles listed such as production engineers, project managers or architectural technicians – or media professionals, for that matter.